beyondbrics

By Andrew Downie in São Paulo

While England fans are asking about goal line technology in stadiums during the next World Cup, Brazilian fans are simply asking about their stadiums.

Even with four years to go before Brazil hosts the 2014 competition, experts reckon at least six of the 12 grounds to be used for games will turn into white elephants when the tournament ends.

Brazil’s football stadiums are old and crumbling and it is to renovate or build 12 arenas at an estimated cost of around R$5.3bn (around $2.9bn). Nine of the 12 grounds are publicly owned and more than 90 percent of that total expenditure is expected to come from public coffers. The government development bank is offering a credit line of R$400m ($220m) for each stadium.

However, the planning has so far been typically Brazilian, i.e. bureaucratic, disorganised and slow. In May, football’s governing body FIFA criticised Brazil for being “amazingly late”.

Substantial work on the stadiums has yet to start, even though Brazil was chosen as the venue for the tournament almost three years ago.

A new report by auditors Crowe Horwath RCS said stadiums in Brasilia, Cuiabá, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, and Recife are overly expensive and have little chance of recouping their costs after the tournament.

Tellingly, those stadiums are all in cities where there is no major football team to fill the ground on a regular basis after the Cup or where ticket prices are so low they can’t possibly recoup their investment.

Stadiums in the larger and richer cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, and Salvador are less of a concern.

The answer is to build smaller stadiums (always an issue with FIFA, which says the smallest World Cup grounds must seat at least 30,000), or make them just one part of a complex that includes shops, hotels, convention centres or other such attractions.

One other option – cutting back the number of venues from 12 to 10 or even eight – is perhaps the most likely. The tardy preparations already have officials publicly suggesting that could happen.

It would save money. And blushes.